As low profile FL Mayor, Andrew Gillum spoke at a 16' Qatar conference in Doha. Never discussed it publicly. All $$$ paid for, likely by Rick Smotkin, who recently registered as a Qatari lobbyist. Smotkin later donated max $ amount to Gillum campaign for Gov. Very, very sketchy.

The issue here is Gillum using a representative of a foreign state as his apparent travel agent. And in addition to letting Qatar pay for his expenses, the lobbyist, who is paid by Qatar, gives max $ to his campaign. This is how the seeds of foreign bribery scandals are planted.

Only local papers covered the Qatari conference once it was revealed through email disclosures. But the ties between Smotkin, the Qatari foreign agent, and Gillum appear to be much deeper than we were led to believe amp.tallahassee.com/amp/794165001

Smotkin just reupped his contract work with Qatar. He will be working with Jay Footlik, who served in the Clinton admin and advised John Kerry on Middle East policy.efile.fara.gov/docs/6540-Exhi…

During the Doha trip, Gillum's close friend and campaign treasurer, Adam Corey, reportedly got real cozy with Smotkin, the Qatari lobbyist. The Tampa Bay Times has more on the Corey-Smotkin dynamic: tampabay.com/florida-politi…

My reporting is very specific: You sit on the board of a front org that is fully controlled by the Qatari gov't and they continue to trot you out as a spokesperson for the group. That is something you cannot deny. I never said you work directly for Qatar.

Update: CNN has removed Kayyem's ICSS (the Qatar front group) board position from her bio. It was still there as of a couple of hours ago. I have reached out to CNN for comment.

In describing the claim as a false allegation, CNN confirmed to me that Kayyem was under contract with the Qatar-controlled institution, but says she is no longer there. I didn't know she was being paid... Kayyem's bio has for many years stated her affiliation with ICSS.

Can confirm that registered Qatari foreign agents held in person meetings last year w/ both Marty Baron (exec editor of WaPo) and Dean Bacquet (exec editor of NYT). If Democracy indeed "Dies in Darkness," shouldn't we have right to know what was discussed in those meetings?

Details: The Qatar lobbyists met with Baquet in New York City on 7/26/18 for a "General discussion on Qatar" & a lawsuit involving fmr RNC official Elliot Broidy, who has been a target of Qatar for some time. The next day, the lobbyists met in person w/ WaPo's Marty Baron in D.C.

Unclear why top bosses 2 biggest US publications sat in on meetings w/ Qatar lobbyists. 2 days prior, WaPo got a "scoop" from the lobbyists, which was described as an op-ed, but ended up being written by a WaPo reporter(?). Reads like pro-Doha propaganda:washingtonpost.com/world/national…

There is a lot of perspective missing in Ilhan Omar anti-Semitism debate. (THREAD)1. In her native Somalia, pretty much everyone has a negative view of Jews. There are no Jews in Somalia so viewpoints are established from myths, folklore, which contain anti-Semitic conspiracies

2. This is why assimilation in the United States is SO SO important. The Somali refugee community in MN is very much insulated from outside perspectives. This has led to a tremendous ISIS indoctrination and extremism problem, among other things.

3. Omar is a product of a community that has not properly assimilated. Her anti-Semitism is representative of Islamic supremacist culture, also representative of an ongoing US policy failure. She is not in any way unique. This video really hammers it home:

2. @BarackObama may have been appeased the #Taliban by acquiescing to the #Doha terror office; but now it’s a #Taliban demand: “Our demand about having an official political office is clear, we want that our office in Doha is recognised by the international community and the UN.”

When there's more corruption by Andrew Gillum, it's time for another fake racism scandal.

"Undercover FBI agents paid for Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum's hotel room and his ticket to the Broadway musical Hamilton during a 2016 trip to New York City, according to a bombshell trove of records that raises new questions two weeks before the Nov. 6 election for FL Gov.'

@KurtSchlichter@johncardillo An FBI corruption investigation has several Tallahassee officials caught up in its net including Gillum & a lobbyist/restauranteur Adam Corey
Since the arrival of FBI subpoenas last summer,nowhere has the dark cloud been more forbidden than over city hall breitbart.com/big-government…

@KurtSchlichter@johncardillo Thru out much of this scandal Gillum has been absent from Tallahassee & waging his gubernatorial effort thru out the state of Florida..

A campaign to secure a second Brexit referendum within a year and save the UK from “immense damage” is to be launched in days, the philanthropist and financier George Soros has announced.

George Soros attempting to influence local criminal justice policies across the nation by pumping millions of dollars into the campaigns of left-leaning district attorney candidates a report said. From 2015- 2017 the leftist billionaire donated $9 million to local D.A. candidates